North Korea continued scathing verbal attacks Thursday against the adoption of a landmark U.N. resolution on its grave human rights record, again threatening a fresh round of nuclear testing.
A U.N. committee on Tuesday approved the text condemning the “longstanding and ongoing systematic, widespread and gross” rights breaches in line with a Commission of Inquiry study released in February.
The panel has been endorsing a resolution to address the situation each year since 2005. But the latest one unprecedentedly calls for the Security Council to take the issue to the International Criminal Court and levy targeted sanctions against the key perpetrators, prompting Pyongyang’s strong protests.
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| Large screen monitors broadcast Choe Myong Nam, North Korea’s official in charge of U.N. affairs and human rights, as he speaks during a meeting of the U.N. General Assembly human rights committee on Tuesday. (AP-Yonhap) |
The North called the move a “political swindle” aimed at building the logic for an “armed intervention,” citing the U.S.-led NATO bombing on Yugoslavia in 1999.
“We will sternly punish for and wholly reject the forcible passage of the U.S.-orchestrated resolution,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.
“As the U.S.’ hostile acts are making it impossible for us to refrain from a new nuclear test, our war deterrent will be reinforced without limits to counter its plot for an armed intervention and invasion.”
By Shin Hyon-hee (heeshin@heraldcorp.com)
